Chapter 4: Dinner at Seven

"Come to dinner," my father said on the phone. "Seven o'clock. A car will be at your dormitory."

"I can take the bus."

"A car will be at your dormitory," he said again, and hung up.

It was the longest conversation I'd ever had with him.

At seven a black sedan idled outside my building, with a driver who held the door and didn't look at my coat.

I sat on the leather seat with my hands folded over my knees so nobody could see them shake.

The dining room of the Kessling house had a table for twenty and four places set at one end.

My father sat at the head.

Edmund Kessling was sixty-one, with silver hair and a very straight back.

He looked at me for a long time and said nothing.

Mom sat to his left with her napkin already wet.

Caleb sat across from her, calm, with a glass of water.

Brynn sat beside him, and she did not look up from her plate.

There was a bruise-colored smear on my cheek where she had hit me, and I saw her see it.

Nobody said anything until the soup came.

It was potato leek.

I almost laughed, and then I almost cried, so I looked at my spoon.

"Erin," Dad said. "I have watched a video of you in a public square."

"Yes, sir."

"Of Brynn striking you."

"Yes."

"And of you saying you were hungry." He folded his napkin. "Are you hungry?"

My throat closed.

If I said yes, they would know the card was empty.